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The Academy of American Poets is the largest membership-based nonprofit organization fostering an appreciation for contemporary poetry and supporting American poets. For over three generations, the Academy has connected millions of people to great poetry through programs such as National Poetry Month, the largest literary celebration in the world; Poets.org, the Academy’s popular website; American Poets, a biannual literary journal; and an annual series of poetry readings and special events. Since its founding, the Academy has awarded more money to poets than any other organization.

“Poems can be found, if they’re looked for, addressing every realm of what in our lives can feel broken.... Every truly good poem has in it, somewhere, an anchor dropped down into wholeness.”

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"I live in the East End in Houston, Texas, a neighborhood where my father's parents built a house in the 1920s and a space that my settler colonial family—mainly German but also Irish and other European lineages—has been transiting through for the last seven generations. Now, I move my body through this space of constant shifting, brazen capitalist profiteering, and displacement of working-class Latinx and Black folks, a few miles from the largest petrochemical complex in the United States. So many layers and so many so many so many... The poem happened one morning after a flood. Befitting my gulf coast home, the words flooded out too."—John Pluecker

so many this mornings so many movement so many breezes so many cypress so many doorways demolished so many brushso many vines crawl up the front of that house and so manyspaces so many wide open between one structure and anotherso many ditches so many cars parked in the grass in front of a home supposedly abandoned where people live so many branchespiles at the curb so many beat-downs so many row housesgone and so many porches so many cut-throughs so many feelingstill in the wood so many highways invade so many train horns blow softly so many autumn morning so many springtime dusk so many pink afternoon as the sun peeks through the blinds so many pick-up trucks so many suvs so many milk factories and so many 18 wheelers so many tiny plastic bottles of milk and so many oaks and so many farms and so many concrete and so many cracked and so many peeling paint so many thickness so many depressionso many joy so many angry pinpricks so many back-ups so many give me a hug so many late night drunken driving so many earlymorning so many mourning doves so many cooing so many policesirens so many listening so many humans walk the middle of the roadso many cars wait to pass so many anger and so many smile so manyapprehension so many thistles so many concrete slabs so many gapeso many lost and so many nights so many grandmas so many grandkidsso many people just trying to remember what used to be thereso many new people who just got here so many things to misrememberso many escape memory so many brains so many bodies so many bodies gone and so many cemeteries marked and unmarked so many ditches so many huevo con papa and cake so many deepdeep breaths so many sighs so many pauses so many moments ofsilence so many marches so many meetings god so many meetingsso many attempts so many failures so many new townhomes so manydispossessed so many carwashes so many cowboy hats so many persons forced out so many barbecues so many coolers so many bags of ice so many country ballads so many accordions so many quiet so many loud so many noisy so many silent so many germans so many telephone road so many lasagna so many pupusa so many gordita so many jaywalkers and so many dance moves at the bus stop so many jiggling and so manycars pass by so many stares and so many awkwardness so many good mornings so many fuck you’s so many fights and so many love-making so many graffitied so many murals so many old doors so manylintels so many country people come to the city so many bulldozers and so many work crews so many dusty lifts into air so many hardhatsand so many pallets so many pine and so many sheet of metal so many buses so many stray dogs so many mean-muggingand so many evictions so many eminent domain so many minimizingand so many excuses so many money so many reasons so many justifyso many sadness so many let it go and so many so-called misunder-standings so many moldy and wet so many floodlines so many hurricanes so many attitudes so many perspectives so many sung and un-sung somany panaderías demolished so many pushing and so many pulling so many mechanics so many broken down cars so many lay in the sun so many wait so many trees blow in the early morning wind so manyspeed up and so many people go home so many people go to work somany undone so many bulldozers so many hoses spray water on wreckage so many shovelfuls of metal and lumber so many precious objects discard so many lost in the tumble so many feelings so many yellow and red so manysilver and gold so many blue and green so many green things so many grass so many suns beat down so many heatstrokes so many city moves on so many layers so many accumulations so many things a street a street remember

Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.
Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.
Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.
Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to gaze at bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
It is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you everywhere
like a shadow or a friend.

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One must have a mind of winter
To regard the frost and the boughs
Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;
And have been cold a long time
To behold the junipers shagged with ice,
The spruces rough in the distant glitter
Of the January sun; and not to think
Of any misery in the sound of the wind,
In the sound of a few leaves,
Which is the sound of the land
Full of the same wind
That is blowing in the same bare place
For the listener, who listens in the snow,
And, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.

Refresh and expand your poetic vocabulary with this collection of poetic forms, complete with historical contexts, examples, and more. For more on poetic forms, browse our selection of terms from Edward Hirsch’s A Poet’s Glossary or check out our quick teaching guide on essential poetic terms.